Gerald Bean is a self-confessed sports nut.

“I played all the sports when I was younger including football, bowling, darts, billiards and tennis,” said Mr Bean, 76. “You name it, and I played it.”

During the pandemic he fell in love with a new game, cornhole.

“It is similar to horseshoes,” Mr Bean said. “It is very popular in the western and southern United States. There is a big American association for it, and they have massive tournaments. There are rules and regulations. It is real serious.”

He first heard about it on television.

“I watch sports channels like crazy,” he said. “After I saw the game on television, I decided to make one of the boards. I made a long board with a hole in it and put it outside. I was playing for an hour at a time. Sometimes my wife, Tiny, would come out and play with me.”

Players are supposed to stand 27 feet away from the board when they throw the bean bag.

“You can cheat,” Mr Bean said. “My great-grandchildren are little and stand right on the board to throw the bag in the hole. They have fun.”

He decided to make more boards to sell. He is a creative sort and was already making and selling corded bracelets.

At first, it was not easy to make the boards, because he did not have the right tools.

“Now I have a bigger saw,” he said. “Making the boards is tasky. It is also expensive to purchase the materials, such as a sheet of plywood. For the first six months I was not making any money, but I enjoyed doing it. It was a lot of fun. I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning and start doing some more boards.”

He sells them for $300 a set that includes two gaming boards that latch together when not in use. That allows two teams to play at once.

He sold his first cornhole board last November. Business was a little slow at first, but cornhole seems to be catching on now. He has sold more than 100 of the games.

“Certain people know what cornhole is,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of corporate clients. I have sold games to Chubb, the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club, Snorkel Park and Mid Ocean Club. They use them to entertain club members or for special events.”

He has also sold them to people for weddings and parties. A friend of his paints them with the client’s chosen colours or logo. Earlier this month, Gorham’s, on St John’s Road in Pembroke, used his boards as part of a Cup Match promotional campaign.

“Everyone is having fun and enjoying the game,” Mr Bean said. “The other day a lady sent me a video. Her husband surprised her and gave her a set for her birthday. She said, ‘I love this. Thank you’. I haven’t had a lot of feedback, so it was very nice to hear that she was enjoying it. That was certainly my first video thank you.”

To advertise the product, he made up a T-shirt saying “It’s corn hole season” with his telephone number on it. That has got a few reactions.

“There was an American lady in the coffee shop,” he said. “She stopped me, saw my T-shirt and said, what do you know about cornhole? I said I know I sell the boards.”

Mr Bean confessed he has not played the game recently; he is too busy constructing the boards.

He calls himself a “jack of all trades”.

“I can do a lot of things,” Mr Bean said. “I am a motor mechanic by training. I just changed the radiator in my car this week, and changed the disc pads last week. Years ago I worked for Bermuda Aviation Services, and then for Bierman’s Concrete. They had 12 trucks, a pump, payloaders and vehicles like that.”

He joined the prison service to get away from mechanics, but as soon as he got there was put to work in the garage.

It was while working for the prison service that he discovered cricket.

“I came to it late in life,” he said. “In those days the prison service had several cricket teams, and I started playing for one.”

In 2008, he coached the Bermuda U19 team which qualified for the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup in Malaysia that year.

These days he is retired from playing cricket but still loves watching it.

“I go all over the world to see it,” he said. “In November, I’m going to India to to watch the men’s World Cup cricket. This will be my sixth World Cup, and it is held every four years.”

He worked in the prison service for 23 years, eventually becoming a principal officer. He retired soon after Westgate Correctional Facility opened in Dockyard, replacing the old Casemates. After that he managed properties for several years.

He and his wife, Tiny, are originally from St George, and now live in Paget. They met years ago when Mr Bean sang in a band playing at the old Bermudiana Hotel in Hamilton.

“One of the guys in the band with me had a girlfriend who was friends with Tiny,” Mr Bean said. “When Tiny spotted me, she gave her friend a sixpence and said ‘tell him to call me’.”

He did.

They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in February.

“She is not sporty, but she is a good fan,” Mr Bean laughed. “I go all over the world watching cricket, but she would not sit there and watch the game with me, even Cup Match. She will come to Cup Match, but come later.”

He grew up in St George the middle child of 11.

“I had five brothers and five sisters,” he said. “We had a lot of playtime together. You never had to go looking for someone to play with.”

His mother, Kathleen Bean, worked as a chambermaid in local hotels such as the Coral Island Club. If they were short of staff, Mr Bean and his siblings would often be roped in to help.

“We would be washing pots or doing whatever,” Mr Bean said.

For more information on Gerald Bean’s cornhole boards, call 232-1910.

• Lifestyle profiles the island’s senior citizens every week. Call Jessie Moniz Hardy on 278-0150 or e-mail jmhardy@royalgazette.com with the full name and contact details and the reason you are suggesting them